Menu bar animation causes WindowServer to run at ~58% CPU (macOS 27)

[Long-HaiPeng]

Environment

• macOS 27.0 beta, MacBook Pro (Apple Silicon)
• RunCatNeo 1.0.3 (com.kyome.Neo.RunCat)

Problem

While RunCatNeo is running, WindowServer consumes ~58% of one core continuously, causing noticeable heat and fan noise. Quitting RunCatNeo drops it to ~13%.

Reproduction

1. Install RunCatNeo 1.0.3, let the cat animation run in the menu bar
2. Measure WindowServer CPU (e.g. ps axo pid,%cpu,comm | sort -k2 -nr or Activity Monitor)

Measured data (12s delta sampling of WindowServer cumulative CPU time)

State	WindowServer	load avg
Baseline (RunCatNeo running, all apps)	~58%	5.78
After quitting RunCatNeo	13%	3.78
After additionally quitting AlDente (control)	12%	3.64

The ~45pp drop after quitting RunCatNeo points to the menu bar animation triggering continuous redraws of the menu bar region.

Additional observation

While the issue occurred, WindowServer logs showed commitBrightness firing roughly every 4ms with a slowly creeping swap brightness value (172.96 -> 173.1). Not sure if RunCatNeo is involved here - including it in case it helps.

Suggestion

• Throttle animation frames when CPU is idle / window is not visible
• Consider a static-icon mode (menu bar apps don't need 60fps)
• Pause animation while the menu bar dropdown is closed

Great app otherwise - happy to help test a fix.